🇺🇸▼
An illustration of a fashionable gentleman from the reign of George III standing on a country path. He wears a long red coat, tan breeches, polished black riding boots, a black hat and a white cravat, with one hand in his pocket and a walking cane in the other.
historyextra.com
The terms "gay" and "queer," along with the identity categories that have grown around them, are relatively modern inventions. However, people who would be identified as gay, queer, or gender non-conforming have existed for centuries. This includes the Georgian period in Britain, which spanned from 1714 to 1837. This era occurred more than 200 years before homosexual acts were decriminalized in the United Kingdom in 1967.
Anthony Delaney, an honorary fellow at the University of Exeter and the author of Queer Georgians: A hidden history of lovers, lawbreakers and homemakers, challenges the idea that queer history is new. "We are told that so much of our history as queer people is new, or that Oscar Wilde happened and then we were all gay. But this isn’t the case – we have always been here," Delaney explained during an interview with the HistoryExtra podcast. He notes that queer people have historically had to be very flexible in how they interacted with the law. To get what they wanted in life, they had to find ways around legal obstacles by using the mechanisms available to them at the time.
One such mechanism was adult adoption. While this practice might seem unusual, it served as a clever legal strategy for same-sex couples who could not marry. By adopting their partners, they could establish legal bonds that mimicked marriage, allowing them to secure their relationships against a society that criminalized their love.
Perhaps the most famous examples of gay men adopting each other occurred during the AIDS crisis in the 1980s and 1990s. During this tragic period, many gay men adopted their younger partners. This legal maneuver allowed them to be present at each other’s bedsides during final illnesses. It also ensured that they could inherit property and assets from their partners, who were often denied these rights under traditional inheritance laws.
However, this was not a new phenomenon. Delaney points out that archives suggest similar practices were happening as far back as the 1780s. During the Georgian era, same-sex marriage was illegal. Yet, gay men still sought ways to legally link themselves together to pass on property and titles. The goal was not necessarily for a younger man to become the legal "son" of his partner in a familial sense. Instead, it was about becoming the legal heir to ensure the survival of their shared wealth and status.